1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to apparatus for ensuring consistent and accurate delivery of gobs of molten glass to the blank mould of a glass bottle moulding machine.
Glass bottle moulding machines usually include a plurality of moulds above which is placed a reservoir of molten glass. Glass passes from the reservoir in a slow stream and is sheared into gobs for sequential direction to the bottle moulds.
Typically a gob distributor just below the shears directs a gob into the guide trough of a respective mould, the gob sliding under gravity and being deflected to fall vertically into the blank mould.
The gob distributor adopts an alternative position for the subsequent gob and the timing of the machine is arranged to deliver gobs of glass to each mould in regular sequence. Hitherto the method of aligning the gob guide trough and deflector has been relatively crude thus leading to imprecise guidance of the gob and the possibility of nonvertical entry into the blank mould.
Typically each part of the apparatus for guiding the gob from distributor to mould is separately mounted on the machine frame; the position of each part is separately adjustable in three dimensions to permit accurate alignment of adjacent parts. In practice alignment is often time consuming since adjustment of the position of one part of the apparatus affects the position of adjacent parts. The method and means for aligning the gob delivery apparatus have remained largely unchanged for many years.